


Reconnaissance

by NanakiBH



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Amnesia, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hidden Depths, Hugs, M/M, Manipulative Behavior, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Soulmates, Speculation, Touch-Starved, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 11:58:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20796278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanakiBH/pseuds/NanakiBH
Summary: A recon mission reveals more about themselves than the world they were sent to investigate.





	Reconnaissance

**Author's Note:**

> This takes before or around 358/2 Days.
> 
> You should know how I am by now. This is based on the theory that Demyx is the Master of Masters. I just keep burrowing deeper and deeper into this rabbit hole. I have no interest in coming out at this point. lol This is my new home. I like it here.
> 
> I really like writing situations like this where they play a game of wits with each other, but I'm worried that I'm repeating myself. Should I try to write something else next time...? It all depends on my whims. And Nomura's. I wonder what the next khux update will bring. (Ominous.)

“A mission with you, huh?”

Demyx stopped in his tracks and gave Xigbar's back a look of indignation.

“What's that supposed to mean? Haven't I proven myself reliable yet?”

“This is my first mission with you,” Xigbar said, not bothering to wait for him, continuing his way up the steep, brick road toward the station at the top.

Demyx hastily scurried back to his side. He looked up at him, trying to get Xigbar's attention from his blind side. “Then what's with the skepticism? Feels like I'm being judged, but I don't know what I'm being judged for.”

“I've heard things.”

“Oh, of course you've heard things...,” Demyx muttered ponderously, falling behind again as he mulled over his reply. “Was it Larxene? I bet it was Larxene. That witch always has it out for me...”

Xigbar stopped. He turned around and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I heard that you don't like to cooperate with your partners.”

Demyx stared.

Then he laughed.

“Have you met them?”

Xigbar couldn't help but laugh with him. He had a point.

He did whatever the job required, but his fellow Organization members rarely made the job easier. Each of them had their own unique personality defects. He would've rather had a lazy partner who stayed out of his way than another dimwitted loudmouth, that was for sure. Everybody was trying to become the favorite, climbing over each other as they tried to reach the top. He had yet to have a partner who just did what they were supposed to do without trying to steal the show. As if anything they did even mattered.

Demyx might've had the right idea. There was no point in trying to rub elbows with Xemnas. Their loyalty wouldn't have even guaranteed them their safety.

Short of betrayal, there was no way up and no way out.

Demyx was wise, removing himself from that rat race. Only, Xigbar wondered how long he could get away with doing his own thing. He must've been pretty confident in himself.

“Maybe this is a match made in heaven.”

He clapped Demyx on the back, his grin widening as he watched him stumble forward.

“Huh? Me 'n' you?” Demyx rubbed the back of his neck in a sheepish manner and laughed to himself. “M-maybe! I've had a good feeling about you. You're different from the others.”

“Different?” Xigbar asked, lifting an eyebrow. There was no reason for Demyx to know what really made him different from the rest of them, but he was curious what made him feel that way.

“Well, for starters, you haven't bullied me yet.”

“It sounds like you're expecting that to change.”

“I'm just being cautiously optimistic.”

He was interesting. Xigbar wouldn't have minded skipping work with him just to spend some more time with him, but he had to at least pretend to be diligent for the sake of appearances. He could continue to pick his brain as they busied themselves.

They were in Twilight Town. The mission was recon.

Xigbar had been there before, but Demyx didn't need to know that.

When they reached the top of the hill, Xigbar grabbed Demyx by the hood and pulled him to a stop to prevent him from marching on ahead.

“Tell me what you see.”

He wanted to see how observant he was. No one received recon missions as frequently as Demyx. He wanted to find out if there was a reason for that or if it was just Saïx's way of sparing the others from having him as a deadweight partner.

Demyx approached the wall outside the station entrance, boosted himself up, and perched himself on top. He looked out at the town, cupping his hands around his eyes like binoculars.

Humming thoughtfully, he looked from side to side and all around, nodded to himself, then set down his 'binoculars' and looked back over his shoulder at Xigbar.

“Yeah, so, what exactly do you expect me to look for?”

“Don't get smart. You know what recon is.”

“I can see everything there is to see from up here, but if I don't have context, I might as well be staring at a wall.” He made a vague gesture with one of his hands and looked at Xigbar with a bored expression. “Are we looking for a Heartless? Are we scouting for new recruits? Are we monitoring activity in the town?”

“You can't just tell me what you see?”

“I already told you what I see,” Demyx said, his eyes narrowing with irritation, his mouth drawn into a flat, serious line. “You're the one who should be more specific.”

Xigbar felt lightheaded.

Their conversation was dizzying.

What did he mean?

He said he saw everything...

There was no way he saw every corner of the town, no way he could have taken it all in that quickly. Unless he was being purposefully obtuse, Xigbar didn't understand.

Demyx dismounted from the wall and brushed some invisible dust off the front of his coat.

“Recon? Is that all the assignment said? Saïx should've said we were on guard duty. Pointless.” He sniffed and started walking past Xigbar, looking for all intents like he was abandoning the mission. Was that a habit? Xigbar felt like if he let him out of his sight, he was bound to disappear.

Xigbar grabbed him by the arm. “We aren't finished.”

After one glance at the hand on his arm, Demyx's demeanor softened and the unusual atmosphere around him seemed to disappear, vanishing without a trace as if it had never been there. “Oh, come on. There are better ways we could spend our time~”

He was back to his usual self. The difference was too much to ignore, but Xigbar didn't know how to comment on it without rousing Demyx's suspicion.

“Pointless?” He just wanted to see if he could make it come out again. “Are you calling Saïx incompetent?”

Demyx recoiled and tugged his arm away from his grasp. “H-hey, now. No putting words in my mouth! You better not tell him I said something like that! Have you ever seen that guy when he's angry? He's like a totally different person!”

He wasn't the only one.

Xigbar couldn't figure it out, though. Everyone said Demyx was lazy, but that didn't seem to be the case. He sounded concerned with their efficiency – to a pedantic degree. It was more like he simply refused to perform on less than perfect orders. But maybe that was just a loophole he was trying to exploit to avoid work...

When Xigbar next looked up, Demyx was closer than he remembered, their faces only inches apart.

“Why don't you tell me what _you_ see?” Demyx said.

The eyes that looked at him somehow seemed different – sharper. A shiver ran down Xigbar's back, but he hid his reaction. Nevertheless, he felt like Demyx had seen inside him. It was impossible, but. Demyx's eyes were as clear as glass. In them, Xigbar saw the reflection of his own fake self.

He refused to pull his gaze away. Doing so would have been losing, he thought. He didn't know what he would have been losing, exactly, but he sensed a challenge.

What was he supposed to be looking for?

Something that couldn't be seen with the naked eye.

“I see a brat.”

Demyx looked surprised. Then amused. Then playfully annoyed. All in a single second.

He gave Xigbar a light shove. “See, that's why I was being cautious! So mean... Be serious!”

“If you want me to tell you what I see, you're going to have to be more specific,” Xigbar teased, tossing Demyx's words back at him. It was a little frustrating, but he couldn't deny that there was something fun about their ambiguous conversation. Underneath it all, there was either something or there was nothing, but he was willing to bet that the two of them were on the same page.

It was a very familiar dance. Nostalgic.

It reminded Xigbar of his clumsiness. Once upon a time, he would have struggled to keep up with such a roundabout conversation. He remembered what it was like to get tongue-tied, to feel speechless, to get caught off guard by an exceptional wit... 

But he wasn't like that anymore. He'd practiced and learned the steps.

He knew how to dance circles around anyone, so that was why it was so curious, how evenly Demyx matched his pace. For the first time in a long time, Xigbar felt like he had to be careful not to fall behind.

“You were right,” he said, shaking his head. “Saïx should've told us what we were here to observe. I don't even see any Heartless right now. No particular activity, either. Doesn't look like anything's changed. I've been here before.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“What made you figure?” Xigbar asked, pleased to have received a nibble on the bait he dangled.

Holding his chin, Demyx tilted his head in thought. “As soon as we got here, you headed straight up here like you knew we'd have a view of the town. Could've just been a good assumption, I guess, but... How do I put it?” He moved his hands to his waist and smiled self-assuredly. “You seem worldly.”

There was no way he knew how well-traveled he was...

“Are you calling me old?”

“You're the one who said it, not me,” Demyx said with a snicker.

Xigbar sighed.

He was probably just overthinking things... It was just in his nature to be cautious. He wouldn't have survived for so many years if he hadn't kept his guard up. Even around the most innocent-seeming characters, he had to be careful. One too many times, he'd been caught unaware by someone who seemed like something they weren't. It'd been a long time since he'd been fooled that way.

Demyx...

There didn't seem to be anything dangerous about him at a glance, but Xigbar could tell that he wasn't a normal person, and he certainly wasn't as innocent as he pretended to be. Every word from his mouth seemed to be crafted in response to his own reactions. He could tell what Demyx was doing... But the thing that bothered him was the fact that he felt himself falling for it.

What he saw in front of him... There was no way that it was real.

But it was endearing. Demyx made it hard to hate him.

One thing was for sure.

They weren't wrong to trust Demyx with recon.

He was very, very good at observing.

Xigbar couldn't perform his usual observation when the subject knew that they were being watched. They were just circling each other, making no progress, one pretend person making pretend conversation with another pretend person. All he knew was that there were things he didn't know.

“I get the feeling that if I try to go anywhere on my own, you're going to grab me again,” Demyx mumbled morosely, sulking with his arms crossed. “And here I was, hoping that you'd be chill...”

“I'm honored that you think I'm not like the others, but I'm not the type who abandons my responsibilities when they aren't convenient for me. Sometimes, you just gotta do things you don't wanna do.”

Demyx was giving him a look. A rather disgusted look, looking down his nose at him as if he'd said something repulsive.

He opened his mouth.

Xigbar held up a hand to stop him. He didn't want to hear another phony line from his script.

He wanted to know what he was really thinking – what made him make that face.

It was just his own curiosity. He didn't care about fairness. If Demyx despised working that badly, it didn't make a difference to him. Unlike the others, he had no delusions of making progress within the Organization. He was just there to ride it out until the end, doing whatever needed to be done to see it to its conclusion. He was prepared to take it all upon himself, including Demyx's share if he had to.

“I'm curious what you think is important.”

“The only things that are important are the things I like,” Demyx said, not missing a beat.

Xigbar closed his eye with a grin and let out a satisfied chuckle.

“You know what? I'd be afraid to be on your bad side.” He fixed his eye on Demyx's face and watched him closely. “What about me, then? Do you like me?”

“Hmm? J-jeez, really putting me on the spot, huh?” he mumbled, flustered. He twiddled his fingers and a light blush colored his cheeks, the same color as the town's warm, evening light. “I mean... It's not like we've known each other for that long, right? We've barely spoken until now. I don't know what it is about you, but... Yeah. You're already important to me.”

What a strangely menacing way to say that he liked him.

Xigbar felt relieved.

He wondered to what lengths Demyx's philosophy extended. If he would forsake all but the things he liked, then Xigbar was glad to be counted among those things. Demyx may have just been a runt with an aggrandized self image, but if he was more than that, he didn't want to underestimate him. He didn't think the two of them had ever met before, so he was very curious about the past of such a person.

Perhaps Saïx knew what he was doing, putting the two of them together without any particular objective. He must have thought that if anyone could straighten Demyx out, it would be him. Well, he tried, but he'd already come to the conclusion that he couldn't do anything about him. As long as he could find a way, Demyx was the type who would always do whatever he wanted, mission be damned.

He wasn't trying to escape from him anymore, though...

It was hard to believe that he'd given up. More likely, he wanted to stay with him; he was just pretending to have given up.

Xigbar rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on.

He hadn't dealt with anyone that complicated in a long time. Not since...

“Hey,” Demyx piped up, making Xigbar flinch. “You alright? You look kinda tired. Well-- You always look kinda tired, but you're looking especially tired right now. You know I'm always down for taking a nice, relaxing sit. Just saying. And, besides...” He looked away for a moment, a pensive feeling in his lowered gaze. “You work harder than anyone, don't you? The Organization doesn't compensate you for everything you do. Why bother...?”

“Are you curious? I have my reasons,” he said, giving Demyx a wan smile. “Gotta keep 'em to myself, though.”

Even if he told him, he wondered if Demyx would have been able to understand why he chose to do so much for someone else. Not knowing seemed to leave him troubled. The things in his head were probably very interesting if not a little sad.

“Can we take a break?” he asked.

Xigbar chuckled. “We haven't even done anything.”

Still, Demyx's eyes remained lowered, like he couldn't bring himself to look at him, as if looking would have revealed something. “I know,” he muttered, sounding a bit irritated. “It's not for me. I'm trying to be considerate, okay?”

For a moment, Xigbar stood still, silent.

Had it been that long...?

He couldn't remember the last time anyone had done anything for him.

It hurt.

A part of him hurt.

“Hey, whoa-- Are you... Are you okay?” Demyx grabbed him by the shoulders, holding him steady. “I just... It seemed like what you needed. I said you're important, right? So I want to make sure that you're happy, if that makes sense. S-sorry. I know that must sound kind of weird... I'd just hate to see you grind yourself into the ground for something unimportant.”

The fragile part of him had never left him. It was still there. He'd just gotten good at pushing it down, deep within himself.

Why did it have to come out for someone like Demyx...?

Was he that desperate for someone's kindness? Anyone's?

The Master was going to laugh at him for sure.

Oh, how he wanted to hear his laugh...

The look on Demyx's face... It just made him ache more.

That was what he really wanted.

He wanted the Master to look at him that way, with so much worry.

“No, I...” He put a hand over one of Demyx's and immediately found himself grasping it, unconsciously longing to touch another person. “You don't gotta worry about me. I know it must not look like anything to you, but it's important to me. I know there's a reward waiting for me.”

Slowly, Demyx removed his hands from his shoulders, sliding them down Xigbar's arms. He looked up at him a little hesitantly, then took a step forward to close the gap between them and put his arms around him, awkwardly enveloping him in a loose embrace. He looked up, searching for Xigbar's reaction.

“Is this okay?” he asked.

“Yeah... Yeah, it is,” Xigbar said, his body steadily relaxing. Despite all reason, he felt his defenses crumbling. Lowering his head, he pressed his nose into the crook of Demyx's neck and breathed deeply. “Thanks, actually. You might've been right. Makes me feel lame, but it seems like this is what I needed.” More than he was even willing to admit.

It was better than okay. It was just a hug, but it felt nice. He felt safe. He'd kind of forgotten what that felt like... It came rushing back to him in an instant, bringing back ancient memories of being held protectively in the Master's arms.

Demyx's hug didn't quite feel like a substitute...

It was a good thing the station was quiet around that time. It would have been awkward if anyone had walked past. Even though it was kind of humiliating, Xigbar wanted to enjoy it for as long as he was allowed.

“I'd do anything for you, Xiggy. You're important.”

The notoriously lazy Demyx was willing to do anything for him...?

For him, it was a meaningful gesture. Xigbar appreciated it.

“If you tell anyone about this, you're dead. I hope you know that,” he said.

“I wouldn't dream of it. I'm saving this as blackmail material.” When Demyx noticed the icy glare he was being given, he jolted away from him and flailed, waving his hands around apologetically. “J-just kidding! Seriously, I'm just joking! I'm going to keep it to myself. I... kinda like knowing that there's something about you that only I know. I'm not going to give that to anyone.”

The implication was a little unsettling. If he told Demyx everything – how many years he'd lived, how many lives he'd stolen, his temporary role within the Organization – he wondered if he would have still said the same thing.

Probably.

Demyx acted like an idiot, but he seemed to know how to keep a secret. The Organization clearly wasn't of importance to him, so he had no reason to use a secret against him.

Xigbar wanted to tell him...

As suspicious as he was, he felt trustworthy.

But, unable to tell whether that trustworthy feeling was just another part of his facade, Xigbar wouldn't allow himself to say more.

Instead, he asked, “Do you have any secrets you want to share? Let's make it even.”

He knew that was bold of him. He doubted that Demyx would tell him anything.

As he expected, Demyx shook his head. He looked disappointed. “If you weren't aware, I've got a bit of amnesia. If I had any big, important secrets, they're just as much a secret to me as they would be to anyone else.”

“You're smart.”

“Hm? Thanks.”

“You're welcome, but I wasn't trying to compliment you.” He went back to rubbing his temples, seriously wishing that Demyx could just be serious with him. “You're obviously not as stupid as you pretend to be.”

“Well, yeah, but anyone with eyes and a brain could figure that out. It's not really a secret.”

“Are you calling everyone else stupid?”

“Again, I'm not the one who said it.”

Xigbar laughed out loud, a little nervously. The fact that Demyx was seemingly hiding nothing beneath the facade made it all that much more confusing and disturbing. _He was just messing with them?_

“You get it now, right? Come on, keep up,” Demyx said. His playful teasing stirred something inside Xigbar. “Should we keep looking around out here or should we go relax somewhere and continue our conversation? It's up to you. You're the only guy I'll listen to.”

“Yeah, let's... Let's go somewhere.” Their conversation had proven more interesting than anything their recon would have yielded, anyway. That was probably why they hadn't gotten anywhere. They'd been standing in one place for a long time, preoccupied with themselves.

Demyx started heading off on his own and Xigbar just followed, feeling tired and bewildered but also curious about where they were going. He'd assumed that Demyx had never been to Twilight Town on a mission, but he seemed to know where he was going.

Demyx went through the station doors and Xigbar followed. Inside, they stopped and waited for a few people to leave. The people stared at them as they passed, but they left without questioning them for their strange, all-black attire. Once they were gone, Demyx made for the door near the entrance. The writing on the door said 'Station Staff Only' and it was clearly locked. Not so easily discouraged, Demyx kept jiggling the knob, refusing to accept that it wouldn't open.

“This is ridiculous. Just use a portal,” Xigbar muttered.

“That's cheating!” Demyx said in a hushed, heated voice.

Maybe he _was_ stupid...

After a lot of embarrassing struggling, Demyx gave up. He stared at the locked door as if it had personally wronged him.

“I don't need a key.”

Xigbar heard a click from the other side.

“What'd you do?”

“Watch your step,” Demyx said as he opened the door. “Floor's wet.”

As he said, there was a sizable puddle on the other side which Xigbar carefully stepped over. He assumed that Demyx must have enlisted the help of one of his clones.

Xigbar closed the door behind them and then followed Demyx up the tight staircase. The only thing up there was the station's clock tower. It was an interesting choice. It made him feel disappointed that he couldn't share the nostalgia it gave him without saying too much. He was good at keeping things to himself, but he would have loved to tell someone stories about the Master and the interesting things that went on inside the Daybreak Town clock tower.

Up at the top, the door to the outside was unlocked. Whoever was in charge of it must have assumed that nobody would've made it past the first locked door. To be fair, they had no reason to expect water clones.

The tower was very tall.

Demyx wobbled a little.

“H-hey, if I fall, you'll catch me, right?” he asked, sparing a nervous glance back at Xigbar. “V-very handy to have a buddy with gravity powers!”

“You're scared? This was your idea.”

He was visibly sweating.

“I... Yeah...” He inched closer to the edge and looked over. He quickly seemed to become transfixed by something in the middle distance, his eyes becoming unfocused, his expression vacant. “I don't know... I wanted to go someplace where we could be alone, and this was the first place I thought of for some reason. I... I don't know. I don't know why.”

“What's wrong? It sounds like your brain's on the fritz.” Worried about what was going on inside Demyx's head, Xigbar put a hand on his shoulder and eased him away from the edge. “Sit down and calm down. I won't let you fall off, alright? I could get fired if I let that happen.”

“I'm fine,” Demyx said. He twitched, rapidly blinking his eyes until the clarity returned to them. “I'm okay, really. I'm not that afraid of heights. It was something else...”

He sat down along the edge and hung his head, still looking dazed.

“Did you remember something?” Xigbar asked, crouching next to him.

“I can't hide anything from you,” Demyx said, forcing a laugh. “I didn't actually remember anything, but it felt like my brain was trying to. But... I don't have a heart, so I guess it couldn't find the memories it was searching for. Whatever it was, it was... kind of scary.”

It could have very well been anything, even just a vague, upsetting feeling, but Xigbar couldn't help but speculate. He assumed that Demyx came from the same time as the others. He had a general idea of the sort of things he might have experienced.

Did he have lingering memories of the war?

Or was it something else?

A memory awoken by the clock tower itself...?

“What kind of person do you think I was?” Demyx asked, lifting his head to look at him.

Xigbar didn't think of the Dandelions as being especially smart. They were trained by Ava, after all. Demyx just didn't seem like one of them. If he was, then he was going to have to admit that Ava must have done something right and he didn't want to do that.

Demyx was different. He represented something unfamiliar and unknown, as mysterious as the future itself.

“Scary.”

“Yeah... Maybe,” Demyx quietly agreed. “Do you think that's a bad thing?”

Xigbar looked out at the distance and let his vision unfocus on the light resting along the horizon.

“Doesn't have to be. I bet a lot of people think I'm scary, but you don't seem afraid of me. Even if you were an imposing person, I think I'd still like you. Cuz you're smart. And you do what you want. I like that.”

“Here,” Demyx said suddenly, brightening considerably. He sat up on his knees and patted his lap. “For you.”

What did he expect him to do? Use his thighs as a pillow?

That was a weird way to show his appreciation.

It didn't sound that bad.

“Alright.”

Xigbar laid down, resting his head in Demyx's lap. Folding his hands over his stomach, he closed his eye and relaxed, releasing the tension in his shoulders. Within a few seconds, his consciousness was already drifting, feeling warm and comfortable. He felt one of Demyx's hands on his head, his thumb gently stroking his hair, easing away his stress. His mind became, for once, blissfully blank. He took a breath of the cool air and let it out.

The nature of his existence disallowed meaningful relationships to grow. He rarely knew a single person for their entire lifetime, always having to vanish from their life so that he could continue his life's mission.

He met each new person with the presupposition that they would be strangers and that they would always remain strangers. There were few who stood out as significant.

Demyx stood out. And there was a part of him that wanted to hammer him back down. If Demyx wasn't going to be someone important in the end, then he didn't want to waste his time getting to know him.

The heart... He wasn't sure if he could rely on it anymore. He saw what happened when people let it lead them.

Even so, the voice in his heart was telling him that there was something special about Demyx. It said he must have appeared for a reason.

Maybe it was just his intuition.

Nobodies didn't have hearts, after all.

“I wonder what that reward is you mentioned,” Demyx said curiously. “I know you won't tell me, but I bet it's something good.”

When Xigbar opened his eye, the light seemed brighter than before. For a moment, all he could see of Demyx's shadow-covered face was his clever smile. A painful feeling of longing suddenly filled the emptiness in his chest and made him wish for the end to come sooner.

He'd forgotten how much he missed him...

“If it's something like this,” Xigbar said, “I wouldn't be disappointed.”


End file.
